Microsoft Pushing Media Apps

I saw a bit of a silly comment today saying that according to Microsoft, when people have finished playing games, they like to watch something, whether it be a video or stream something via an app and I thought, yeah, because you make these apps like Crackle available for free, of course people will watch stuff through them.
It’s what gamers do, have a good session on a game, then when they’ve had enough and don’t feel tired or it’s not time to go to bed (unless they’re already in bed due to the console being in the bedroom), they will watch something. That’s what has gotten Microsoft excited, a little too excited to the stage that they’re trying to say that people are watching more than playing, so they’re on a mission to REALLY promote the video apps.

To a lesser extent, the music apps too, but they’re really pushing the media side of things in quite a frightening manner, could this be because of the rumours about the next Xbox being disc-free? To reiterate something I said previously, what Microsoft need to realise is that not everyone has the kind of internet connection or service where they can just turn on the console and watch a few hours of programs or a couple of movies at any time of the day.For example, Netflix can stream up to 2.3 GB an hour for high definition content, that would leave some with a big dent in their monthly allowance or for others, a throttled connection for a while of up to a quarter of their full speed.
There’s still quite a long way to go before streaming can become commonplace in the majority of Xbox Live members homes, so why are Microsoft so eager to go digital-only?
While apps can add a load of extra functionality to consoles, if developers want their pride and joy as the main multimedia centre in homes, we’re going to need them to remember that disc-based media still exists and man can’t live on apps alone… or something.
Also, until the Kinect becomes more affordable, to something along the lines of £39.99, then I suppose we’re going to keep hearing ‘Better with Kinect’ all over the place, too.